The cold season is approaching. You might own an empty cottage, a holiday home in the Calanques, Cassis, or a family residence at Roucas Blanc that will remain closed until the next sunny days. Besides pipe freezing, the real winter threat is human: organized or opportunistic squatting.
Legislation protecting against evictions during the “winter truce” often motivates individuals to illegally occupy warm, empty homes as soon as the first cold days arrive.
Here is a 3-step preventive action plan to prepare your property for winter closure.
1. Eliminate “dead empty signs”
Burglars look for routine during their reconnaissance patrols. A dormant house is marked by closed shutters, overgrown lawns, and – most obviously – a mailbox overflowing with junk mail.
Simple steps to take before leaving:
- Redirect your mail: Set up a temporary redirection via La Poste. Stick a brand-new “No Junk Mail” sticker on the mailbox. If you have a friendly neighbor, ask them to empty it now and then!
- Park a car as presence check: Give a key to a neighbor or friend so they can occasionally park a car in your driveway or shift it to show movement.
- Never tag keys ‘Marseille House’: It sounds silly, but it is a common mistake when handbags or luggage are stolen on trains!
2. Extreme locking: Forget standard locksets
Do you believe locking your door with a standard double turn is enough to deter a professional team of squatters in winter? Standard locks don’t resist more than a few minutes against professional handheld power tools. Worse: intruders sometimes destroy the wooden door frame itself with crowbars to pop the door open.
In winter, your best insurance is renting a temporary anti-squat steel armored door. Why is this door so effective?
- Our technicians in Marseille install it inside your existing door frame, protecting your beautiful original door behind it by leaving it safely wide open. No damage is caused to your walls!
- When you return in spring, a simple high-security key lets you enter the home… while the massive steel block remains fully impenetrable.
3. Keep an ‘electronic eye’ without relying on electricity
To save money, you probably suspended your home internet connection and flipped off the electric circuit breaker. While good for safety, it renders traditional connected cameras blind.
To counter this, we rent 100% autonomous cellular video detection and alarms to our clients for winter. These smart units require no external power, feature internal batteries that run for nearly a year, and rely on their own 4G cellular SIM card (like a smartphone) to notify you directly with a high-definition video if anyone is lurking around your garage at 2:00 AM!
Rendering your second home undesirable to intruders means choosing rock-solid physical prevention. Discover our winter protection packages with a free quote based on your opening access points!
